New Commission Block Exemption Regulation and amendments to the Regulation

Amendments to the General Block Exemption Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of the European Commission are in effect as of 10 July 2017, see here.

The title of the amendment regulation is “Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/1084 amending Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 as regards aid for port and airport infrastructure, notification thresholds for aid for culture and heritage conservation and for aid for sport and multifunctional recreational infrastructures, and regional operating aid schemes for outermost regions and amending Regulation (EU) No 702/2014 as regards the calculation of eligible costs”.

The amendment regulation made the following amendments to the General Block Exemption Regulation No 651/2014::

Article 1 (Scope) – paragraph 1 (new aid objectives were added); paragraph 3 (application of the Regulation on the fishery and agriculture sector and the primary agricultural production sector was specified); paragraph 4 (a) and (c) (implementation of the Deggendorf principle was specified and the prohibition of providing aid to undertakings in difficulty in case of start-up aid schemes and regional operating aid schemes was alleviated);

Article 2 (Definitions) – point 39 (the definition of “operating profit” was replaced); points 42 and 48, new point 48, point 55 and new point 61a (supplemented in connection with regional operating aid); new points 144–165 (definitions for aid for ports and airports were added);

Article 7 (Aid intensity and eligible costs) – paragraph 1 was amended (reference to Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council was added in connection with simplified cost options); paragraph 3 was specified (with regard to discounting); paragraph 4 was deleted (discounting of aid in case of tax advantage);

Article 12 (Monitoring) – article was replaced, incl. new paragraph 2 was added (obligation of a Member State to establish a control mechanism in case of automatic tax aid);

Article 13 (Scope of regional aid) – article was replaced;

Article 14 (Regional investment aid) – paragraph 6 was specified; paragraph 7 was specified (requirements in the event of fundamental change in the production process now only applies to large undertakings); new points 16 (obligation of the beneficiary to confirm that the establishment has not been relocated) and 17 (requirement for the fisheries and aquaculture sector) were added;

Article 15 (Terms and conditions for operating aid in outermost regions) – the article was replaced;

Annex II Part II (Information regarding state aid exempted under the conditions of this Regulation) – new aid objectives were added; aid to SMEs (articles 17–20) were divided by Articles;

Annex III (Provisions for the publication of information as laid down in Article 9(1)) – references in footnotes 2 (NACE) and 3 (specification) were amended.

New Block Exemption Regulation is effective as of 1 July 2014 – Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty (OJ L 187, 26.06.2014, pp. 1–78).